Daily Archives: January, 13, 2013

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Candy Crowley, Sunday morning, National Rifle Association President David Keene said he doesn’t think there’s enough legislative support for another ban “right now,” but that might not necessarily hold.

“When a president takes all the power of his office and he’s willing to expend political capital, you don’t want to make predictions — you don’t want to, you don’t want to bet your house on the outcome,” Keene said. “I would say that the likelihood is that they’re not going to be able to get an assault weapons ban through this Congress.”

Keene said he doesn’t think regulations on high-capacity ammunition clips are likely either, saying they would be difficult to regulate because they’re so widespread.

When Crowley tried to accuse the NRA of ramping up fear of a gun ban in its members, Keene replied that it was Senator Feinstein and Obama who are the ones driving all the gun sales in this country – not the NRA. See video at MRC.

On Friday’s Special Report, the panel agreed that the chances of any major changes in our gun laws was looking highly unlikely due to the Obamocrats’ gross overreach after Sandy Hook, (which Jonah Goldberg found fascinating because the left was hoping for an anti- gun backlash, and the opposite happened.) See RCPfor video of that discussion. (Start at 2:17 for gun control portion.) After commenting on Biden’s assertion that Newtown was going to be “an inflection point” – a moment when the climate had changed, it obviously wasn’t, Krauthammer said:

“What is astonishing is the backlash against the attempt of the anti-gun people to use a moment to pass new restrictive legislation – the increase in NRA membership, the huge explosion in sales, and it shows that we are a country very different from any in the West if there’s ever going to be a change, it’s going to take a generation, it’s not going to happen from legislation, and it’s not going to happen in the near term.”

I think Keene is right, and the panel is a bit premature in their prognostications. Obama has shown time and time again – with the Stimulus, which inspired the Tea Party movement, the unpopular ObamaCare, which a majority of Americans opposed, and after the shellacking in the 2010 election, which was supposed to cause him to pivot to the right, that he doesn’t care a whit what most Americans, or at least a significant portion of Americans think. When he wants something bad enough, it’s full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes. And what’s to stop him now that he doesn’t have to worry about reelection? I wouldn’t be surprised to see him use “all the power of his office” including executive orders to get what he wants on . We’ll see what kind of backlash that causes if it happens.

Also, why is the president of the NRA ceding to the left the upper hand in gun verbiage?

AsDana Loeschnoted on her blog, yesterday there is no such thing as an “assault weapon.”

Any device used to assault (a behavior or action) someone can be defined as an “assault weapon.” There exist fully automatic firearms and semi automatic firearms, period. There technically is no such thing as an “assault rifle,” either. The term is a Nazi invention (Sturmgewehr) fully named Sturmgewehr 44, and is regarded as the first “assault” rifle. Firearms which shared the technical characteristics of Hitler’s rifle were casually defined with this sobriquet and it grew over time.

The problem with using this phrase to define scary-looking rifles is that it betrays a gross lack of knowledge on firearms. The rifle Lanza had in the trunk of his car (and there are various conflicting reports from a too-eager media about whether or not this rifle was used in the shootings) was not an “assault rifle.” Anyone claiming that it was is insisting that Lanza’s weapon was a military-grade rifle capable of selective fire, meaning, it has the giggle-switch to kick it from semi-automatic to fully automatic. I’ve shot so-called “assault rifles” and I own semi-automatics. They are not the same. Anyone calling any of these rifles “assault rifles” used in the Sandy Hook shooting and any other such tragedies are claiming that fully-automatic weapons, regulated to banned, are somehow in the civilian market used in mass shootings.

As you will see, these proposals–like others from liberals–would not have stopped the shooting from taking place: they would not even have hindered it. But they would make it harder for law abiding citizens to get the guns they need to defend their lives and families.

For example, one of new laws that CAP wants is an end to private gun sales. This would include, of course, an end to those dreaded gun shows.

Question: Did Adam Lanza buy his guns in a private sale? No. He took them illegally and used them illegally.

Another proposal by CAP is for states to turn over more personal information on citizens to the federal gov. so that background checks work better.

Question: Did Adam Lanza foil the background check system to get his weapons? No. As a matter of fact, reports indicate he purposely forewent the background check because he knew he wouldn’t pass it.

“Newtown fundamentally changed things. And the NRA just doesn’t get this. They’ve got to come to the table on gun control just as they say they’re coming to the table on mental health because their previous backers in the House and the Senate aren’t with them anymore.“